The coin operated gaming machine has evolved from a mechanical device into a microprocessor based electronic system. Most recent examples use color CRT screens to display the gaming action, with the mechanical aspects limited to the handling of the coins involved. Some of today's designs replicate mechanical and physical features of older, mechanical designs, but these are a stylistic overlay on what is fundamentally a modern, electronic system.
Most present coin operated gaming machines handle only one denomination and only local currency and consequently a casino usually installs separate machines for each popular denomination of a local currency. Player's desires for specific games and for the amount wagered tend to vary over the course of the day. Smaller denominations tend to be more popular during early daylight hours of the day, larger denominations tend to be more popular during the evening and night and early morning hours.
At any given time, a player's desire to play particular denominations of coins may not coincide with machine availability. Further, the various games have typically been available on a one machine/one game basis.
More recently, machines have evolved which offer multiple games on one machine, but such machines do not satisfy the need for savings of space and the convenience afforded by the ability to play multiple denominations of coins.
In the past, mechanical, illuminated push button switches have been used to instruct game programs, such as drawing or holding cards in the game of draw poker or taking a hit card or staying, in the game of black jack, as examples, and had permanently affixed markings on the buttons, making them unsuitable for multiple games. Touch responsive screens with their changeable legends, or blank buttons with directions displayed on a screen, deal with this difficulty, but they are expensive or awkward.
In International Publication WO85/00910 of Feb. 28, 1985 there is shown and described a gaming machine of the type employed for what is commonly known as a "fruit machine" or slot machine which accepts coins of two different currencies and pays out winnings in the opposite currency which enables the prior art slot machine to accept, for example, a coin of the currency of one country and pay out in coins of the currency of a different county. Such machines were adapted to accommodate travelers who desire to employ the currency of different countries and receive the pay out in the country of their destination and wherein means were contemplated to establish the necessary rates of conversion of the different currencies. However, such machines would not recognize play and winnings with different denominations of coins of the single local currency, or chips representing a currency common in a casino, for example.
In Wilms U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,424 granted Jan. 11, 1994, there is shown a video card gaming machine which allows for push button selection of the value or denomination of a bet to be made in the playing of the card game, but no provision is made or recognized for playing coins of different denominations by use of a plurality of coin receiving means which receive only the coins of a selected one of a plurality of denominations. Instead, the teaching of Wilms is that all money played is received in a single receptacle and the amount of the total money received which is to be bet is selected by pushing a selector button. Moreover, there is no recognition in Wilms of making any form of side bet.
However, in the play of certain card games, there exist opportunities to make wagers which involve adding to the total bet. For examples, in the playing of black jack there are side bet possibilities, including, without limitation, buying "insurance" against the dealer's black jack for which the player bets 50% of the initial wager; pairs may be split one or more times involving doubling the initial bet at each split; "doubling down" involving doubling the initial bet and receiving only one more card; and awaiting a separate wager which may be made that the first two cards are of the same suit. Other side bet opportunities exist in poker involving the cards as dealt or subsequently drawn.
Known coin operated gaming machines which do not have facility for accepting different coinage of the same currency do not facilitate "side bets", so as to more realistically represent playing card games at the usual table with chips or money of different values with a dealer who can make any necessary change for larger currency units.